As U.S. Catholic bishops draft a controversial document on whether priests can deny communion to politicians who support abortion, one House Democrat has implied that the Catholic Church should lose its tax-exempt status if churches institute such a ban.
“If they’re going to politically weaponize religion by ‘rebuking’ Democrats who support women’s reproductive choice, then a ‘rebuke’ of their tax-exempt status may be in order,” wrote Rep. Jared Huffman, D-Calif., in a Twitter post lashing out at Catholic bishops.
Huffman’s post came after nearly 60 House Democrats released a “statement of principles to warn the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops against what they deem as “weaponizing” the Eucharist.
The statement was released after the USCCB voted Friday to approve the continued drafting of the document “on the meaning of the Eucharist in the life of the Church.”
An overwhelming majority of the bishops (168) voted in favor of proceeding with the draft document, while 55 voted against proceeding. The bishops will continue working on the document, which will be presented to the public at a later date. While the document will provide guidelines for the reception of communion, it will leave “decisions on withholding Communion up to individual bishops.”
Supporters of withholding communion from pro-abortion Catholic politicians, both inside and outside the Church hierarchy, point to the Church’s Code of Canon Law as the justification for their position. The Code of Canon Law states that those who are “obstinately persevering in manifest grave sin are not to be admitted to Holy Communion.”
Full story at Christian Post.
If they did this to the Catholic Church, they would also have to do the same thing to the Mormon Church which only allows Mormons in good standing to enter a Mormon Temple.
I’m getting tired of politicians interfering in religious affairs.
See how totalitarian Democrats are? “You will do what we want you to do or else! You will agree with us or else! You will comply, you will bake the cake, you will get with the program or else!”
“Democrat threatens Church’s tax-exempt status over Communion document.”
Yes. Please do.
Fake Catholics willing to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Not that they care about babies, these abortion fanatics will do anything to keep legal the dismembering of unborn babies in the womb. Truly sick.
There is a lot of hostility toward Christian denominations and the Catholic Church in particular.
Dear Mr. Huffman, Josep Biden, Nancy Pelosi:
MANY are called; FEW are chosen.. (and Few does not mean Many!)
That might actually be one of the best things that could happen to and for the Church. Although Huffman might want to give serious reflection to the inconvenient fact that Catholics still have the right to vote in this country.
SouthCoast-I have been saying that for decades.You are right on the money.
We have San Diego’s Bishop McElroy to thank for his imprudent “weaponizing the Eucharist” statement. He should be thrilled that it’s now gone politically and nauseatingly viral.
He and some other Bishops should leave the Church and become politicians. They are acting like politicians not like Shepherds of the Church
Amen!
No vote here for any of them.
Democrats do not believe in the 1st amendment rights – Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Religion. This is not about the Catholic Church threatening politicians. Any politician (Pres. Biden for example), can leave the Church any time they wish. This is not the Catholic Church imposing its will on Democrats. Every Democratic Party Catholic person has the right to leave the Church, any time they wish. What this is about, is the Democratic Party behaving like Stalinists, and attempting to impose their beliefs on the Catholic Church. It is a clear violation of the First Amendment. If you don’t like the Church, Democrats, LEAVE!! And Catholics, please note this ominous Stalinistic behavior, and do NOT vote for Democrats in the next election. The Church is openly and clearly under attack in a criminal fashion by the Democratic Party. Do not support them!
“Weaponizing” religion or the Eucharist?! It’s amazing how those who challenge many long-held beliefs quickly accuse those who maintain those beliefs of being “polarizing.” This is true not only in matters of faith, but of biology, marriage and other things as well. We haven’t moved. We’re simply standing where the Church, and humanity in many cases, has stood for millenia. So, who is being polarizing and divisive?
Yet, maybe the Eucharist, like the Cross, is a weapon. It’s a weapon against sin and death. As someone at CatholicVote noted, “Everyone was too quick to cave in to the premise that we shouldn’t weaponize the Eucharist. Yes, we should. The sacrificed Lamb is the ultimate conqueror of evil. Absolutely wield it against the architects of industrial-scale murder. Lift high the Cross. Charge.”
Should bishops who have tacitly or overtly supported Catholic abortion-proponent politicians also be denied the Eucharist? I think it’s a fair question.
They should be removed from their sees.
Be careful how high in the hierarchy that goes… to Rome?
Ultimately, this would have to get past the SCOTUS, and the Democratic-Socialists know this very well. It’s simply their effort to manipulate the USCCB.
No, it would just require Congress to pass a law changing the tax code so that religious institutions aren’t tax exempt anymore.
I find it disheartening that those ardently faithful are quick to condemn and defile others, sanctimoniously and self-righteously. Rarely do I see anyone suggest prayer for Biden or any other politician. It’s black and white, ones and zeroes, clumping entire groups as evil incarnate. Can anyone say definitively if the president hasn’t gone to confession prior to going up to receive the eucharist? Or is it an assumption that he, like all those who are deemed as unworthy, is assumed not do to so. How many Catholics take the sacrament while also taking birth control on the sly, or had an abortion in their teens ? We as laity are not in place nor empowered to condemn others in terms of their spiritual rewards, nor judge those in priesthood who make decisions that obviously to some the readers here don’t like.
Should we parade piety before you, in the form of loudly proclaiming how we pray for Biden, etc.? Perhaps with drums and trumpets? We know we are to pray for them. Give us the benefit of charitable doubt,if you can.
Michael -There is one glaring difference here: Biden as a senator and now as President has publicly supported a “woman’s right to choose”, and has fought for government funding for abortions for low income women. As President he has formal and informal Executive powers. As recent as January 28 of this year, Biden used those powers to sign a memorandum which effectively reversed restrictions to abortion, both domestically and foreign. Biden’s political hammer strike against the Right to Life for the Unborn puts him at grave odds with the magisterium of the Catholic Church. I hope you can understand the difference between a private Catholic approaching the altar with perhaps a crisis of conscience and Joe Biden, arguably the most powerful Catholic politician in the world, who defiantly approaches the altar with, as he says, a clear conscience. It is no wonder that we are spitting nails over this.
Mike – we are NOT being sanctimonious and self righteous. We wish to defend the Church, against these political attacks which threaten our basic Catholic beliefs. Politicians have NO right to insist that we change our tenets, creeds and laws, to suit the Democratic Party. Mike, you are incorrect to defend these pols, you should also be protecting our Church from these attacks. And NO, we are not going to change what Jesus said, and the Bible. If Joe Biden doesn’t like this, well, he should go join another group. Perhaps he could become a Muslim, since he never criticizes them….
Michael, it seems extremely likely, virtually certain, that the President has not gone to Confession before approaching Holy Communion, since it’s obvious he has not repented of the sin of promoting baby killing. A desire to sin no more is part of Confession. Sacraments are not magic to be dispensed upon anyone. Since he has made his sin(s) so public, his repentance, appropriately, should be public as well.
Sleepy Joe is nearly at the point where he’s too cognitively impaired to be responsible for his cats.
IMHO churches should not enjoy tax exempt status. Church employees and parishioners benefit from roads, bridges, water systems, airports, etc. Churches should pay their fair share of the cost of the infrastructure.
The Catholic Church, and all denominations, should have tax exempt status, because they (the Churches) enforcing the 10 Commandments and keeping us Christians in line, saves the U.S. government, billions of dollars fighting crime! Think about it.
Reply to Barney and Mojave: Your remarks reflect the usual ignorance of what the Church does for the US. Every year, there are about
1 million,800,000 students in Parochial elementary and high schools. The average annual cost of tuition for a student is around 12,000 dollars. And yes, the federal, state, and local governments do contribute and help out with these costs, but the savings to American communities is still around 20 billion dollars yearly, for these schools. And there are many other intangibles, for example, there are far less policing costs for Parochial schools, and the students are on average, better citizens and workers.
So Barney and Mojave, hope this helps your understanding of what the Church does, and why Parochial Schools are a very positive help to every US community.
This politician might be surprised that this will not just affect 70 million Catholics in the U.S. .
The 141 million Protestants, 4.5 million LDS, and 7.5 million Jews will have plenty to say to him.
I miss the days when one could attend Mass without being given a political message from the pulpit. Allowing others to make their own decisions based on their beliefs is what democracy is all about. Trying to shove one’s anti-Biblical beliefs down everyone else’s throats is fascism. The Bible does not state life begins at conception. The Bible does give instructions on how to induce a miscarriage, ie, an abortion. Get Biblical or quit claiming to be Christian.
I’ll get biblical: “Male and Female God made them.”
“The Bible does not state life begins at conception. The bible doesn’t mention the Trinity either, yet it is the focal point of the Faith. We are not sola scriptura, which is not Christian either.
Michael, you offer an argument from silence on the matter of abortion. There is no mention of abortion in the New Testament but in the post-apostolic Didache it is specifically condemned. We may safely assume that this mindset is the apostolic mindset — the tradition handed down from the apostles. As to your Biblical “instructions” on how to perform an abortion, please cite the passage you think applies with full context. A citation without context is just a pretext for blowing smoke. Of course you know this as you champion yourself as being Biblical. Thanks in advance for your reply.
John the Baptist leapt in his mother’s womb as a foetus of 6 months. Sounds pretty lively to me.
Does Jared Huffman belong to any religion, and if so, does anyone know the answer to that question?
In an interview with The Washington Post’s Michelle Boorstein published November 9, 2017, Huffman stated “I suppose you could say I don’t believe in God.”
From his wiki page
Pray for Mr. Huffman (and all). Raised in the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (RLDS), he lost faith at age 19. He does not describe himself as an atheist, instead saying he is “a humanist, [perhaps an] agnostic.”
Yet, tragically, so-called Catholics and other nominal Christians are likely to support his proposal.